35mm negative scanners.

[JZ]

Going through some of Dad's old photographs and found some sleeves containing 1000+ 35mm negatives taken between 1947 and 1950. Many are of his time in India, where he did his national service. These include some of the Kalka-Simla railway. There are also some of the early days of British Railways, mostly, if not all, Southern. I also want to digitize some of my own and Dad's slides, probably another 1000+. The cost of sending the lot out to get them done would be many times the cost of scanner to do it myself. Scanners vary from around £45 to £175. Has anyone got one and what are their opinions of the ones they have please.

 

Julian

[john new]

I use an Epson V600 which has an option to do transparencies in batches of 4 slides as well as high quality flat-bed copying. (Still a current model = https://www.epson.co.uk/en_GB/products/scanners/consumer/perfection-v600-photo/p/3597 ) The results are very good with a high dpi rate obtainable but it is not ideal for batch work. It can also do negative film strips.

 

I would also be interested in other users comments on any of the options available for batch scanning of both neg strip and transparency work, in particular what dpi the resultant scans are. 

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by john new
Typo - dyslexic fingers!

[Nearholmer]

The software seems as important as the scanner, and once the version that is supplied when you buy the scanner goes out of currency, it isn’t always easy, and certainly not always free, to obtain the next version.

 

In summary: worth getting tips on the software, as well as the hardware.

[Iain.d]

I use a Nikon Coolscan 5 for my slides / negative strips. The software it came with no longer works with current Windows or Mac OS; I use Vuescan (paid for, once, which gives a perpetual licence) to operate it. It has an adaptor that does 35mm negative strips, in batches of six, and a slide adaptor for single scans. The quality is about as good as you can get for a top end (considered by most) amateur scanner.

 

I scan everything at 4000dpi and maximum scan area, I used the lowest in built cleaning setting. The images scan at about 70Mb as a TIFF, tidied up and cropped they’re about 60Mb - I think a lot of the scan data is noise as a comparable sized image from a digital SLR is about half the file size

 

1000+ slides or negatives will take a long time, particularly if you set everything to maximum scan quality etc, and then of course there’s the processing of the scans….

 

Kind regards,

 

Iain

Edited February 20, 2022 by Iain.d
Added a bit

[Hroth]

43 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

The software seems as important as the scanner, and once the version that is supplied when you buy the scanner goes out of currency, it isn’t always easy, and certainly not always free, to obtain the next version.

 

Software to manipulate the scans once obtained is pretty well agnostic. The main problem is that of driver software that interfaces the scanner to the computer and, depending on your computer operating system may or may not work after major OS upgrades. In general, the cheaper the scanner, the less liklihood of getting driver updates.

 

Another problem with cheap scanners is that they have fairly poor resolution compared with even the cheapest compact digital cameras. I have an Aldi stand alone print and film scanner (so not affected by driver issues) that has a 5 megapixel imaging system, but it was cheap!  I had a flatbed scanner with a negative scanner option, more expensive but it eventually ran out of driver updates and became obsolete.

 

I've got a couple of folders of 35mm negs, cut into 5 image strips. On that basis 1000 negs approximates to at least 200 negative strips, it would take some time to get mine all scanned in, which is why I've not done it. Good luck!

 

 

This isn't an answer to your problem by any means, but its an illustration of the approach some hobbyists take to scanning in large numbers of "negatives". A version to handle large numbers of 35mm negs would be interesting!  https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/how-to-make-a-raspberry-pi-film-scanner/

Edited February 20, 2022 by Hroth

[Metr0Land]

Not quite answering the question the OP asked but I use VueScan for my old Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Dual IV slide scanner.  This predates Win7 and Konica were taken over by Sony who aren't interested.  Vuescan have written drivers for all sorts of no longer supported scanners.  If you have or can get hold of a 2nd hand scanner cheaply that's no longer supported this will probably drive it.  You can try it for free but it adds a watermark to scans until you purchase but can test the waters.  Curr £29.95 for simple flatbed scanners and £69.95 for slide scanners.  For example my scanner predates Win7 and now my PC has been upgraded to W10 works with this as well.

 

https://www.hamrick.com/purchase-vuescan.html

[spamcan61]

Another Vuescan user here, did the best job of any SW I could find in terms of unadjusted colour balance back in the day. If you're scanning lots of images then you need something that will do a good job when left on 'auto' or you'll be there for all eternity 

In terms of hardware I'm still using my Acer scanwit 2700 from 1999, indeed I bought a second one for 23 quid delivered off eBay the other week. The SCSI interface doesn't play nice with Win10 so I have an old Win XP PC dedicated to scanning connected via a KVM switch to my normal monitor and keyboard.

[john new]

The other related issue is also hard-disk capacity and software longevity of the drivers for those. This has become an issue for me, once you have scanned the images to any decent dpi rate you need big capacity hard-disks and/or lots of cloud capacity to store them; my old hard-drives no longer work with my main PC. Still accessible via an old one, but a solution needs to be found. 

 

Drifting off topic I know, and endlessly debated, but this planned obsolescence by OpSys suppliers for peripheral kit that still works is wasteful and annoying.

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by john new
Typos corrected

[Bill Radford]

I bought a negatives scanner from the now defunct Maplins some years back. Very hard work, basically taking a "photo" of each negative at a time. Came out pretty grainy.

[Tim V]

I have an old Epson scanner - nearly 20 years! At one point I had a Canon scanner - fairly good results, but on the upgrade to W7, no longer supported.

 

Meanwhile, the Epson scanner built for XP is still supported. Although my computer can't be upgraded to W11, I checked and the scanner will still be supported!

 

So a vote for Epson.

[JZ]

I used to have an Epson scanner that would also do slides and neg's, but it was slow to load and being also a normal scanner. It was given away when no longer supported. I am looking at this one on Amazon. Something like this would be quick and enable preview before deciding to save.

Edited February 21, 2022 by JZ

[Hroth]

5 minutes ago, JZ said:

I am looking at this one on Amazon. Something like this would be quick and enable preview before deciding to save.

 

The all in one scanners are handy, and allow you to put images on an SD card. The captured image is quoted as 22 megapixels (interpolated) but there doesn't seem to be an indication of what it is "interpolating" from.  The suppliers seem to be answering questions, it might be a good idea to ask what the base resolution is, the higher the better!

 

[Damo666]

Another vote for Epson. I did a lot of reading and looked at reviews a few years ago before committing to a scanner. I have a lot of 35mm negs and slides from my photography days and I wanted to capture as good a record as I could, without going fully professional. After all, I was only going to do this once.

 

The Epson v800 and v850 were available at the time. A relative has the v700 and said he was very impressed with the quality. On this basis I went for current model, the v850.

 

It has trays for scanning various formats. There are two slide trays each of which will hold 12 slides. So this allows the scanner to scan one tray whilst you are preparing the 2nd tray, very handy and efficient.

 

The slowest part for me was all the test scans at the begining, to determine the best scanning resolution, dust and scratch removal settings, sharpening settings, and whether to let the scanner do this or post-processing in Photoshop. Once I got my technique fine-tuned it was plain sailing.

 

I wouldn’t advise on the £35 budget USB gadgets if you have valuable images you want to capture. I’ve seen these in use, and the quality is really terrible. Low resolution, blurry.

[Damo666]

21 minutes ago, JZ said:

 I am looking at this one on Amazon. Something like this would be quick and enable preview before deciding to save.

Hmmmm. Only one rating  as of today.

 

[Tim V]

A comment on what I found with my Epson compared to the Canon. The shadow detail was amazingly better, so much so that I would like to re-scan the negatives I did on the earlier machine.

 

Mine is slow - compared to the unit you have linked to, but what happens if the negative/slide is under/over exposed? How much control do you have over the scan?

[JZ]

7 minutes ago, Damo666 said:

Hmmmm. Only one rating  as of today.

 

One rating and no comment. That's why I am only looking at the moment.

[Izzy]

There is a difference between ‘scanners’, and ‘copiers’. In pre-digital days slide and negative duplication was carried out by copying by photographing. Special equipment such as slide duplicators were mostly used by many amateurs involving 35mm cameras and macro lenses. Contact printing was another way. Doing it for a living I’ve done both. 

 

The equipment being looked at falls into this category. It’s really a dedicated digital camera which takes an image of the slide or negative. That is why it’s much quicker to use than a scanner. Depending on the quality of the optics (lens) used in it, the sensor, and the software, it could quite easily produce results that are as good, and often better, than scanning. 

If you look on Amazon you’ll see that there is a Kodak branded version. Whether it uses the same software is moot, it might be better, but then again might not. Kodak originated digital capture so have some history here. It seems to have quite good reviews but does cost more. 
 

The basic sensor resolution appears to be 14mp and interpolated to 22mp for the sub- 35mm film sizes, 126/110. Although just jpg is produced this is quite good enough so long as you do not intend endless manipulation with file saving between each single alteration. 

 

[EddieB]

2 hours ago, JZ said:

I am looking at this one on Amazon. Something like this would be quick and enable preview before deciding to save.

Yes, I'd want to see some more detailed user reviews before committing.   There are a range of similar models on the market starting at around a third of that price - they tend to be easy to use and quick, but with a trade-off for quality.

 

I've had a 10MB version for several years.  With multiple negative holders (3), I can scan a 36-exposure film in strips of six in around 10-12 minutes (or about a third of the time my Nikon Coolscan requires).  The results are ok for reference (can be tweaked to be acceptable on the web), although not sharp across the whole frame.  Little evidence of vignetting.  Grain is barely visible and blemishes (scratches) are less prominent - but that's more a function of lower resolution.

 

What I really want is a value-for-money dedicated 120 film scanner.

[EddieB]

Second thoughts - do you know anyone who might lend you a dedicated film scanner?  (Or buy second-hand and sell on afterwards - many of the best models are discontinued and attract high resale prices). 

 

If the negatives are in strips, 1000+ is not really that many, and should take under a week.

 

Some models (Nikon and Braun) can carry out batch scanning of slides (depending on make/model, an accessory may be required).

 

[spamcan61]

2 hours ago, JZ said:

I used to have an Epson scanner that would also do slides and neg's, but it was slow to load and being also a normal scanner. It was given away when no longer supported. I am looking at this one on Amazon. Something like this would be quick and enable preview before deciding to save.

That only scans one negative at a time, so slow if you're looking to scan whole films' worth at a time, as I was. Not sure the screen adds anything either. Trouble is film scanning has become increasingly 'niche' over the years (as more and more photos are digitally captured) , so not much in the way of new product choice.

[Trevellan]

Just over 20 years ago I bought a Polaroid Sprintscan 120 which was a prosumer model, retailing at around the £2,000 mark. It was superb, and produced well over 8,000 scans before it expired.

 

These days I think the prosumer market is not well served. I now have an Epson V600 Photo which is just about good enough for serious work, though not a patch on the Polaroid. Given the price differential, this is unsurprising. I use the Epson Scan software bundled with the V600. It can be quirky, but generally works fine.

[BrushVeteran]

I too use an Epson V600 photo scanner and I think it is brilliant. It can cope with most size negatives and even by placing the negative without the adapter gives you a good result, sometimes with a little trial and error. 

[J. S. Bach]

8 hours ago, Damo666 said:

Hmmmm. Only one rating  as of today.

 

I have bought many things on Amazon and never, ever left any ratings.

[stewartingram]

I'm still using my Epson V370. I've scanned all my slides, b/w normal sized photos (not the odd sized ones, and some negatives that I've come across. I've also digitised hundreds of magazines (or the parts I'm interested in) that are in the loft. The poor old thing has had to work for its living, and I bought it second hand from ebay too! It will do very high resolution, gives good results, and works fine on Win 10.

[Kris]

About 20 years ago I did a lot of scanning of slides for a charity. The scanner I was using would take 16 slides at a time and scan to a very high resolution. The physical time of scanning should not be under estimated but neither should the time needed for loading / unloading the scanner. To scan a thousand slides will take you a very long time. You may well end up feeling that the money you saved on purchasing the scanner was not worth it in the long run.